Freecycle and Facebook

Creating a Facebook page for your Freecycle group is a great way to promote your local group. This is a guide for local moderator teams of The Freecycle Network® only.

Setting up your group's Facebook page

Here's how to get started:

Before you do anything else, make sure you understand and follow the guidelines for using social media.
Log into Facebook from a personal Facebook account. It is possible to preserve your privacy if you use your own personal Facebook account, although you do have to be vigilant.
From the top of the Facebook page, click "Create."
Click "Page." Make sure you create a page rather than a group. A page has much stricter editorial controls than a group does.
Select "Community or Public Figure"
Name: Give it a name that closely matches your official Freecycle group. For copyright purposes, if you're in the U.S. it's a good idea to use XXXXX Freecycle.org. In the U.K. Freecycle is better.
Select a Category: Environmental Conservation Organization
Under Address, add: “No Street Address”, then add your group’s city, state/province, postal code. Click Don’t show my address.
Click Continue to create the basic page template.
Add a profile picture (can be the Freecycle logo) and a cover picture (try using something to represent your town or local area)
Click Settings, then click Templates and Tabs in the left-hand menu. Select Non-Profit Organization.
Click Page Info in the left-hand menu and fill out your page information.
Go through all the menu options on the left side of the settings screen to complete your page.
Make sure you get the correct copyright information on your page. The Impressum is a good field for the copyright statement.
Email: Leave this blank unless you have a non-Freecycle address you want to put in. Please don't publish a Freecycle.org email address. Instead set up the "Contact Us" button to link to the website.
Use the official Freecycle logo somewhere on your page. Here is a handy square JPG you can use for your profile photo:

Recommended settings

General: Visitor posts. If you want to give visitors the ability to publish posts, it's a good idea to check the box next to "Review posts by other people before they are published to the Page." Otherwise your page will fill up with Offers and Wanteds that belong on MyFreecycle.
Post attribution -- Gives you the option of making posts under the name of your group

Managing your identity

To the right of the search box at the top of your group's Facebook page, you will see either your name or your group's name. This is the identity governing your current Facebook activities. If you see your name, you probably will want to change the settings. From the top of the Facebook page, pull down the triangle on the far right side and change your name to the name of your group.

As long as you see your group's name at the top of the page, any action you perform such as publishing posts and "liking" other pages will happen under your group.

Ideas for posts

Links to local charity donation events, book drives, etc.
Examples of creative recycling, especially in your community
What do I do with...
Interesting items from your group's posts
Information about donating items to local charity groups
Items of seasonal interest
News stories of interest to the Reduce/Reuse/Recycle community

How to spread the word

Ask your Facebook friends to "like" your page
Put an Admin on your group announcing your new Facebook page
Put a "Like us on Facebook" signature on your moderator email address
"Like" your local nonprofit/charity groups and hope they return the favor
Share your group's posts with your personal Facebook friends

Share your posts with The Freecycle Network

Got a great post to share? Share it https://www.facebook.com/freecycle/.

A note of caution

Only current Freecycle moderators can be Admins on with pages associated with The Freecycle Network. If you resign as moderator, you will have to leave your Freecycle-associated Facebook page as well.

For more information

If there are any follow up questions relating to this, or anything else, please contact your Social Media team at socialmedia@freecycle.org

Freecycle and Facebook

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